


Don't Look Back

by JacknessofHearts



Category: One Piece
Genre: Break Up, Canon Compliant, F/F, Goodbyes, One Piece Bingo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 19:34:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29764539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JacknessofHearts/pseuds/JacknessofHearts
Summary: “We need to leave soon,” Nami says. She’s lying on her stomach, head buried in one of Alabasta’s heavenly soft pillows, wrapped into silk sheets softer than anything she’s ever known before.From where she’s lying, she can see the starry night right outside the huge windows, every time the desert wind lifts the curtains. It carries with it the scent of the city, still charred after years of war and pain, leaving the aftertaste of ruins and dust and smoke on her tongue.*Nami and Vivi and saying good-bye.
Relationships: Nami/Nefertari Vivi
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8
Collections: One Piece Bingo 2020/2021





	Don't Look Back

**Author's Note:**

> This is my second entry for One Piece Bingo, the prompt was "break up".  
> I tried to do something short this time, just a thought of how I think Nami would feel in this moment, so this feels kinda experimental. Mainly, I wanted to write that first scene, though.
> 
> Enjoy? Or something?

“We need to leave soon,” Nami says. She’s lying on her stomach, head buried in one of Alabasta’s heavenly soft pillows, wrapped into silk sheets softer than anything she’s ever known before.

From where she’s lying, she can see the starry night right outside the huge windows, every time the desert wind lifts the curtains. It carries with it the scent of the city, still charred after years of war and pain, leaving the aftertaste of ruins and dust and smoke on her tongue.

There’s too much resemblance to the way the Conami Islands smelled right after Arlong tore through them town by town, too many memories welling up to dismiss it entirely.

But there’s also the smell of rain in the air. It has sneaked into every crevice, heavy and sweet and wet, like a promise intent to not be forgotten, like it’s here to stay. It has wrapped itself around the palace, and has braided itself into Vivi’s hair.

“Already,” Vivi asks, but it doesn’t sound like a question. She doesn’t look up from her seat at the window, mesmerized by the steady downpour outside. She’s wrapped an impossibly soft blanket around herself, the white colour like moonlight draped around her shoulders in the dark, in the quiet.

Not for the first time, Nami wishes she had Usopp’s talent for drawing. She wants to keep this picture with her always, wants it tucked away in the space between her ribs, close to her heart, secure.

As it is, she doesn’t even have a camera, so all she can do is stare and try to remember. To burn the image into her mind, where it’ll fade, and fade away.

“The marines are getting closer,” she says. “They haven’t caught us yet, but I’m afraid our little, unofficial truce is coming to an end.”

Vivi draws her shoulders up.

_Look at me_ , Nami wants to say, and at the same time, she’s afraid of it. Afraid of what might happen if Vivi did look up. What she would see.

Luffy declared war on a Warlord for her. How far would Nami go?

“I’d protect you.” Vivi’s voice is quiet, but firm. Regal.

Just like her body under Nami’s fingers. Just like the desert wind.

“I know,” Nami says, and means it.

It’s not something she can ask for. As much as it pains her sometimes, she’s not the captain. And even if he hasn’t said as much yet, Luffy won’t stay, he’s being called by the sea, by adventure, by Gold Roger’s last words, by One Piece.

And where Luffy goes, Nami will follow, being pulled along by her captain’s unstoppable will.

No, Luffy won’t stay because Luffy won’t _stop._ So Nami won’t either. Along for the ride, come what may.

Even if it means leaving behind silk sheets and soft nights.

Although.

“You could come with us.” It’s been on her mind for days now. In fact, it hasn’t left her mind ever since they took refuge inside the palace. Ever since Vivi pulled her into her bed and kissed her breathless.

Finally, Vivi turns her head. Her smile shoots right into Nami’s heart.

Still, she’s too far away, so Nami reaches out, bends her fingers in a _come here_ gesture.

When Vivi gathers up the sheets around her and follows Nami’s wordless plea, it still surprises her. After weeks on the open sea, through war torn countries, through snow and desert and jungle, she still marvels at it.

At her.

“Damn,” Nami breathes, turns onto her back and pulls Vivi down on top of her. “How did I land you?”

Vivi giggles into Nami’s neck.

“I mean, I know I’m awesome,” she says, with conviction, because _duh._

“You really are.” Vivi places her smile right over that spot beneath Nami’s ear.

Nami shivers.

_I don’t want to ask again_ , she thinks as Vivi traces her jawline with her mouth. _I won’t ask again._

This is something Vivi has to decide for herself, Nami can’t force her. Would never force her.

She gets Luffy a bit better now, gets why he needed her to ask for his help, even when it was clear as day that she needed it. Some things need to be said out loud, need to be a conscious choice, no doubt about it, no guessing, just straight-forward words that lead to straight-forward actions.

_Help me._

_Let me come with you._

~*~

Nami raises her arm, feels the wind pressing against the black cross on her skin. She hears Vivi’s voice behind her, hopeful and desperate at the same time, an oxymoron in emotions. It’s so fitting, such a perfect, terrible good-bye.

“If we meet again one day,” Vivi’s question echoes and echoes and echoes over the thunder of the sea, over the cannons the marines keep firing, “will I still be your friend? Will you take me with you again?”

There’s tears in her voice. Nami hears them just as clearly as she hears Sanji’s heavy breathing at her right, open-mouthed and choked off. Luffy at her left seems much more composed, in this moment at least, but he’s pulled the brim of his hat deep over his eyes, so she can’t be sure.

She wants to turn around so badly.

_Good-bye_ , she thinks, tries to send all her thoughts back to Alabasta. Back to that piece of her heart she left in the palace, in the sand of the desert and the caress of the wind, in the rain and sunshine, in the moonlight across Vivi’s bed, in every kiss she pressed into Vivi’s skin.

_Good-bye_ , she thinks, and it hurts so much, for a second she wishes she’d have stayed. Stayed back there in this magnificent, beautiful city, where her heart isn’t shattered into a million pieces, where her lungs don’t constrict like the air around her is insufficient.

Where she can be with Vivi.

“Nami?” Usopp looks at her.

They’re all looking at her, arms no longer raised in a silent promise.

Nami can’t seem to lower her hand. She can’t seem to stop the tears running over her face either.

Huh. When did she start crying?

“I—,” she starts.

The words get stuck in her throat, wedged between her teeth like grains of sand. She feels them, can taste them, but she can’t let go.

“Nami,” Sanji says, and he sounds so _sad._ Not at all like he says her name ordinarily.

Will it be like this, from now on? Just sadness, through and through, like a piece of her, of _them_ , of the Straw Hats, is missing?

Nami chokes on a sob.

“Nami,” Chopper wails.

Then, a hand closes around her shoulder, grips into the muscles that seem locked in position, and slowly pulls her arm down.

Luffy’s hands aren’t soft. They’re calloused and rough, knuckles permanently bruised and scratched, his skin this weird unyielding texture that took a while to get used to.

So, his grip is hard and demanding, even if his own grin is wobbly and soaked with tears.

“We could turn around,” Sanji says, carefully, uncertain but always the dreamer.

“No.” Luffy shakes his head. His eyes never leave Nami’s, wide and sad and serious in a way he rarely is. He looks at her like he understands, like he knows more than he lets on. “Don’t look back.”

_Don’t look back._

Nami keeps her eyes fixed on Luffy, nods.

_Don’t look back._

“The world is round,” Zoro says, and she can _hear_ his shrug. “We’ll come back one day if we keep sailing straight ahead.”

Usopp snorts. “And we keep wondering why you always get lost.”

Nami doesn’t listen to the rest of their usual squabble, to Zoro indignant protests and Sanji’s laughter. She keeps her eyes trained on Luffy’s, keeps herself anchored by his hand on her shoulder.

Steadfast. Secure.

When she’d decided to follow him, she’d left people behind, a whole town full of them, a whole past. She’d thought, naively, that that would be it, that she wouldn’t have to leave anyone ever again because her family is here, right here, looking forward with her, at her side, always.

“I’ll miss her,” she gets out, her voice wet and snotty.

“I know,” Luffy says, his fingers tightening around her shoulder for a second.

“I think, we just broke up,” Nami admits, tears dropping down on _Merry_ ’s deck.

Surprisingly, Luffy’s mouth stretches into a grin, impossibly wide and white. “Well, that’s no good. Seems like we’ll have to be extra fast in finding One Piece, then.”

Nami can’t help but laugh, a little. Just like she can’t help leaning against Luffy for just a moment, burying her nose in his shoulder.

_Don’t look back_ , she thinks, and then she turns her thoughts around, away from Alabasta’s coast and the girl she left there. _Look forward._

Because, while she would never admit it out loud, Zoro’s not wrong. They’ll just have to sail around the world once. And aren’t they doing that already, anyway?

“Aye, captain,” Nami says.

Luffy snickers into her ear.

**Author's Note:**

> hmu @mondfahrt on tumblr


End file.
